Reflected
by Ninja C
Summary: Melanie hates the choice Jamie made for Wanda's new body. A little reflecting - hence title - on Wanda between her and a distraught Ian. Oneshot.


**Reflected**

**Yay! My first Host fic! Wow, that's the exact same thing I said with my Twilight fic (besides the Host part…). So… yeah. I've been reading **_**The Host **_**to my sister, and I randomly got this idea. And I seriously mean **_**randomly**_**. Then again, that's how I get most of my ideas: out of nowhere.**

**Disclaimer: I, being an average human being, do not own **_**The Host. **_**–wistful sigh-**

I _hated_ Wanda's new body.

It was too small, too fragile, too… _not Wanda_, okay? To be honest, it still creeps me out a little. To see the being that I shared a mind with for Lord knows how long so weak and helpless.

Yes, I gave Jared and Jamie a general description of the type of gal we wanted, but I hadn't guessed that they would've chosen _that_. That _Pet_ girl.

Actually, they had monitored her for three days, making sure we knew _exactly _where and when to… ah… _retrieve_ her; and allowing the least time for me to come to and adjust to things in the caves, and the most time we could be sure Ian wouldn't go crazy.

When they'd brought me back a video, of her, I'd flipped.

"Mel!" Jamie yelled, skidding to a stop in front of my gurney in Doc's hospital. "Mel, we've found her!"

"You – what?" I leapt off the cot, a little off-put that Wanda hadn't made any remark. We've just found a body for her, uh… self. _Right._

Jared bounded in after my brother, wrapping his warm arm around my shoulders. Ah, how good it felt to touch again…

"Yep!" he exulted, whipping out a small video camera.

In the ten seconds of the video, I took in the long – Wanda wouldn't like that – frazzled blond hair, the frilly clothes, the childlike voice, and the freakishly small features that would obviously not satisfy her need to help others through hard labor.

I put the camera down shakily. "Jamie," I said, "I'm feeling a bit hungry. Could you - "

"I'm on it!" Jamie was off, eager to help me in any way possible.

Jared was the focus of my attention now. I gave him a look, asking him to explain.

"Well, I like her," were the first words out of his mouth.

"You _WHAT_?!" I repeated, angrily this time. "What are you _thinking_, Jared? I know Wanda, and she won't appreciate this body!" He threw me a dubious look. "Well, okay, she'll _appreciate_ it, but she won't _like_ it!"

He brought his hands up in front of him protectively. He knew how I could get when I was angry. "Hey, hey, Mel. Jamie's the one who chose her."

"Oh, so now you're gonna blame it on him?" No one blamed _my_ Jamie. "He doesn't know what I know! I know that she prefers hair short, and that she hates all that girly crap this girl seems to love, and that she _needs_ to work so hard that she _hurts_ herself to feel like she's worth something in this place!" Jared looked like he was about to interrupt. I held up a warning finger. "_And_ I know that Wanderer will _not_ want to be nine years old!"

Kyle came into the room, carrying three trays full of food. He went straight to his Jodi's cot, wafting a bag of Cheetos in the direction of her face. "Come on, Jodi," we heard him mutter, "Cheetos are your favorite. Wake up. Please."

So Jodi liked Cheetos, too. She'd get along well with Wanda and me.

Jared caught my chin and turned my face back toward his. "Look, Mel," he said, carefully now that Jamie was back, "remember when Jeb said that whoever the body belonged to had full say of what happened to it?"

"Yes," I responded icily. "And then you nearly killed me and Wanda."

I could see that this hurt him, but I didn't care as much as I should. All that mattered to me was Wanda these past days. He shook his head and went on. "Well, I think that it could be used again in reference to Wanda in this situation. But in this case," he turned my still trapped chin toward the corner, where a large, quivering man had been sitting for the past three days, "it would be changed to whoever the _soul_ belonged to."

"But _Jared_," I whined (Wanda would never let me get away with that). "Wanda's _mine_, too! She's Ian's love, but she's _my_ sister! She's my best friend. And I _don't want_ her to have that body."

Jared sighed. I could tell that he was torn. He threw another look over his shoulder at the corner. "Well," he turned back, "why don't you ask him?"

I huffed out a breath. "Fine."

I approached the corner of the hospital, passing Kyle and his three trays. I picked up a roll of bread and a water bottle on the way. Kyle didn't even notice.

_What am I going to say? _I asked myself, as if I was expecting a response. Like that was gonna happen. I was alone. No more little voices in my head.

"Ian?" He still held the cryotank as if it were the most sacred artifact in all the worlds. Then again, to him, it probably was. It was definitely pretty high up on my list. But he wouldn't let anyone else touch it. He was completely unresponsive these days. Even now, he didn't look up at my voice.

I realized this might be harder than I thought, so I turned around and gave Jared a look, telling him to leave. Jared shot a look toward Kyle, as if asking _Should we drag him out with us?_. I shook my head. Kyle wouldn't be a problem; he wasn't paying attention to much else besides waking Jodi up.

Jared left, and I turned my attention to Ian.

"Ian?" I repeated, and tentatively put a hand on his shoulder. He vehemently shook it off, as though it was electric. But while we had been touching, I felt him trembling.

I sighed and got to my knees, crawling around to face him. I could have touched Wanda's cryotank, but I knew that would probably get me killed by a distraught building with feet. Where I was now, Ian was looking at both Wanda _and_ me in his peripheral vision. Looking up into his face, I could see that he hadn't stopped crying.

"Ian," I said yet again. "I have something to show you." He sniffled in response.

I held the videocamera in front of his face, but not obscuring Wanda. He certainly wouldn't like that.

When the video was over, I closed the camera. "So, what do you think?"

"Girl," he said. It was the first word out of his mouth since he'd found out about Wanda's suicide attempt.

"Yes, Ian, that's right." I felt like I was speaking to a hearing-sensitive toddler. "It _is_ a girl. It's the girl that Jamie picked out for Wanda."

Ian actually looked up, his eyes lucid. "Wanda?" His voice cracked. It was painfully obvious that he hadn't used it for anything but crying.

"Yep."

"Okay."

Wait, did he just _agree_ to give her that body? Oh, come _on_!

"Wha – _what_?"

Ian looked back at Wanda's cryotank. "As long as it's Wanda in there, I don't care what she looks like."

"Dude! This chick's, like, four years old!"

Ian gave me a look.

"Okay, more like fourteen. But she's still way too young to be Wanda!"

He didn't respond.

"Oh, so we're back to this, now, are we?"

He still made no movement, spoke no word. So I decided to change the subject.

"Ian, how long has it been since you last ate?"

He didn't say anything, but his stomach did. It seriously sounded like it was saying _Feed me! Feed me!_

I put the roll and water into his lap. "Here, Ian. If you're not going to say anything, at least put your mouth to some use."

It was like talking to a comatose person, I swear!

"I _will_ force-feed you, Ian O'Shea."

He shifted the cryotank from his right arm to his left.

"You know you know I know you know Wanda wouldn't like you starving yourself."

There was a pause.

"What?"

Ha! Yes! Score one for Mel!

"Just eat." I shoved the roll into Ian's hand and then brought the hand up to his mouth. He looked at the bread as though he didn't know what to do with it.

"You have to open your mouth, Ian, and then put part of the round thing in it. Then you close your mouth."

Ian gave me a _don't give me that crap_ kind of look.

"Sorry," I apologized. All this anxiety about Wanda was making me cranky. She would have said it was just my nature. "Look, Ian," I got up out of my crouch and came to stand behind him as he finally began to eat. "I love Wanda, too. The guilt that I wasn't able to stop her has been eating me alive. But we know that she wanted me to be free. That's part of her happiness fulfilled, right?"

"But she also wanted to be buried. Not put into another body."

That brought me back to my original topic. I thought of that body and shuddered.

"Ian, are you _sure_ you don't care what the body looks like? Feels like? Sounds like?" I thought of the soprano voice. That was _not_ Wanda.

"I don't care." Ian sounded morose. He still gazed at Wanda in her cryotank. "As I said, as long as she's in it, I couldn't care less. Her true form is much more beautiful than any human she's put in."

That one miffed me just a little, but I dismissed it. I peered over his shoulder and looked through the lid of the tank, absentmindedly running my fingers through his hair the way Wanda would've wanted to. I watched her rippling attachments, at how graceful they were. "She is beautiful, isn't she?"

Ian nodded mutely.

I sighed. He was obviously not talking any more. I had better tell Jared that it was (I cringed) _okay_ to use that Pet. I didn't notice I was muttering to myself until I passed Jodi's bed again.

"I must not love Wanda enough if this is what I'm giving her…"

"Bipolar person say _what_?"

Kyle had heard my… ah… _musings_.

Not being the type of person to take an ego-bashing, I called back, "Definition of honorificabilitudenititatibus?"

A pause.

"What?"

I thrust my fists into the air in mock triumph, though my face stayed perfectly straight. _Owned!_

As I left, I heard Kyle saying to Jodi, "You'll like her. She's the only person besides you who can take me down…"

Mel: 2; O'Sheas: 0.

**Wow. I think I went a little italics-crazy there. Hope you like!**


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